Because I do in fact, put out for Tempeh.

Vegan Eats World!!

I have received more cookbooks these past few months then I can manage to keep up with. Whenever I hear of a new one being written in the vegan community, I rush right to Amazon on my handy mobile app and pre-order it. That way, I don’t have to worry about it. Downfall? I always forget that I’ve ordered them, especially when I place the order MONTHS ahead of time. That leads to a backup of cookbooks on my shelves and (more often then not) me draining the fella’s bank account. Oopsie!

I was stoked to get it and set aside a good hour of my time to sit and delve right into all the book has to offer.

As soon as I had read through the Intro, I started to read the recipes…and the more I read, the more nervous I felt.

This feeling was familiar. I had only experienced it one other time when reading a cookbook… and that was with Terry’s last, Viva Vegan.*

THESE RECIPES SCARED THE JUNK OUT OF ME.

With Viva, it was fear of the unknown. I had never heard of a good deal of the recipes (their carnivore counterparts) and alot of the ingredients seemed foreign to me. When I began reading VEW, the feeling returned.

But unlike with Viva, I plowed through the book and didn’t let my fear influence me! I grew a pair and picked out a few recipes I was going to conquer!

Of course, I picked some safe recipes.

Baked Tofu. The fella said this tasted like Oscar Meyer wieners. Gross. I thought it tasted like well seasoned heaven.

Pad Thai with Avocado.

I am a HUGE fan of Pad Thai and it is one of my go-to dishes when I’m in a hurry. I’ve sampled many different recipes and this one is BY FAR my favorite. Just the right level of tangy, along with the baked tofu and added corn (don’t ask), it made me one epic meal!

This however, curbed my fear of this delicate dough. Super easy to make, it had the familiar flavor of spinach artichoke dip between layers of flaky dough! Definitely will be making this again.

This dish alone made this entire book worth it. It made me feel Greek, almost like Dermie was in the kitchen, drinking booze and talking about Mama D.

Next up, the dish I made last night while I was in the midst of trying to recover from the plague, pierogis!

Yes, I know they don’t look like REAL pierogi’s. Why don’t you try being super sick and working with super finicky dough while coughing and hacking and hurting and screaming because it isn’t turning out like the ones you buy in the store!! Yes, I ended up swearing at and cursing the pierogi’s (and maybe Terry too…SHHHH!)

They didn’t turn out as beautiful as I had pictured in my head, but they did turn out amazing.

Oh yeah, the insides. Ohhhh yeah.

Based on the three SAFE recipes I’ve made thus far, I might have grown a slightly undersized pair of balls and gained some courage to tackle something else from this beautiful book in the next week.

I’d honestly recommend this book to anyone that is a fan of ethnic, adventurous cooking. The book is chockfull of useful information and is the perfect addition to anyone’s vegan cookbook arsenal.

*I’ve told Terry more then once how much VV scared me. We joked about it, but little does she know it’s on the same level of fear as oil and children puking milk on me.

I’ve had my copy for a week or two but haven’t looked at any of the recipes yet because I’m trying to use some of my older books. To hell with that now, I need to make the pad thai! And the tofu is a thing of beauty…whether it tasted like wieners or not.